2012 Movie Review

I finally went and saw 2012 yesterday and I must say that I was very surprised with how good it actually was. Given the previews I had seen over the last few months I started to think this movie was going to be non-stop disaster, the screen filled with nothing but special effects depicting the destruction of major cities due to mega earthquakes, super volcanoes, and massive tsunamis, and that any attempt at a storyline or character development would be overshadowed, something which seems to happen quite a bit these days as directors get CGI crazy. This wasn’t the case, however, and while the movie was filled with great big scenes of destruction, it all took a backseat to the character development, which was handled really well and seemed accurate to the point where I was able to identify with the John Cusack character, and felt myself growing emotional with the interaction between the secondary characters and their family members. The movie also had a comedic side to it which was refreshing, especially since it seemed so real. The video blog one of the ‘end of the world’ fanatics makes was hilarious and was something I could see a crazy small time backwoods radio station survivalist producing, and the statements like ‘I can’t believe the guys with the cardboard signs were right’ was great.

Now when talking about this movie many people seem to get caught up in the argument on whether or not something will happen in 2012, which, in my opinion, is pointless. Either something will happen or it won’t, so why argue about it? If you think something will happen then spend time preparing yourself as best you can rather than trying to convince the world of its imminent destruction (it’s not like you’ll have bragging rights about it anyway if something does happen), and if you don’t think something will happen then just shut up about it and wait a few years. Oh, and for those of you who are screaming at Hollywood because you think they screwed up the Mayan prophecy, give it a rest; people have been talking about ‘end of the world’ scenarios based on the Mayan prophecy for years and Hollywood just scooped up what was being said and turned it into a movie. They didn’t create anything that can’t be found on a thousand different websites or seen on a dozen different History Channel shows, so why single them out. And for those of you that think the movie will frighten people and therefore shouldn’t be shown, well, shut up and get a life. This isn’t the first disaster movie to ever be shown to the public and it won’t be the last, and really, maybe people should have a small bit of fear within them, not fear that the world will end, but fear that things can happen to this planet that we can’t control, things that we should be prepared for. People get way to comfortable with the idea that everyday will come and go like the one before it and that nothing ever happens.